Ty Segall - Babylon, Ottawa, 18/10/2010

by Andrew Carver

published: 5 / 11 / 2010

Andrew Carver at the Babylon in Ottawa sees highly touted Californian Ty Segall play an enthuiastic set of loud, but lo-fi pop

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Ty Segall is yet another musician riding the rising wave of lo-fi pop along with folks like Wavves, Ariel Pink and Kurt Vile. His brand is louder and more psychedelic than most in the loosely defined field dubbed ‘shitgaze’ in some quarters, and for his tour in support of his latest album ‘Melted’ he had some appropriately noisy fellow travellers. The first band to step on Babylon’s black-painted stage was local quartet Holy Cobras, whose sound started somewhere near the Gun Club, travelled through the Germs and is now somewhere around Sleeper (the U.S. version) and the Stooges crossed with Spaceman 3. Frontman Grady was as usual shirtless, wearing dark shades and leather gloves. Unlike usual he had decided not to write an oblique slogan across his naked chest, leaving only the largely erased remnants from an early show. Unfortunately, while the evening had attracted a sizable audience, it seemed a bit dazed - perhaps it was because of the Monday - and the lack of crowd appreciation led the frequently snarky frontman to leave the crowd with “Stick around for the next two bands ... then go to hell.” They were followed by Teenanger, whose lo-fi, Modern Lovers-worshipping sound seems to be acquiring more feedback squalls as it grows older. Like the Holy Cobras, the band favours highly reverbed vocals, but puts some more twang into the audio mix thanks to Roy Orbison-loving guitarist G.C. Gary. Their fine set was unfortunately truncated when bassist Sharon Needles’ amp head gave up the ghost as they headed into their last song. While the somnolent audience didn’t appreciably liven for the headliner, Segall and company gave it their all. The perennially grinning Segall flopped his golden locks around as gothic beauty Emily Rose kept up a steady thump on drums and bassist Denee Petracek gamely responded to his stops and starts. Meanwhile, guitarist Charlie Moonheart traded off licks and feedback fuzz, sometimes wandering off the stage as he did. At one point an enthusiastic Segall carried Moonheart around on his shoulders, both still playing guitar. Segall’s blistering fretwork levitated his already excellent tunes to another level, and only an extreme exhaustion can explain the audience’s rather lacklustre response to one of the year’s best shows.